FWIW, I have been writing professionally for a decade, and… you betcha! Literally every time! I always feel like no matter how well previous projects went, I have probably forgotten how to do it now, and the new thing is probably rubbish. The more people will see it, the more paralysed I feel, and the harder I find it to write the damn thing in the first place. I just get totally intimidated.
So, here is the best solution to it that I have come up with. Apologies if it sounds a bit childish, but I clarified it for myself while talking to my 7 year old daughter! Courage is a muscle. And the only time you get the opportunity to build that particular muscle is when you’re scared. I try to frame these situations as opportunities to improve my bravery. I think it makes me feel a bit more in control of the situation, and reminds me that I am doing this on purpose because I love to write and I love other people to read my stories. Also yes, it does get easier once it’s out there.
This I how I see them. Mechanically, I follow the style guide, which I remember as saying you shouldn’t go more than about 200 words without a break, and 400 words without a choice (though we all seem to be remembering the style guide slightly differently so who knows?!). When reading on a phone, anything more than about 200/250 words just feels a bit much for me to scroll through. Also I hate reading on my phone, so I play games on my tablet, and that is roughly the length that will fit on one screen in the biggest font size the app offers. That makes it feel more friendly to me, because I don’t have to do much scrolling at all.
But something I think about a lot when I’m writing is, why this medium? Like, this story could have been a novel, or a TV script, or an audio drama, but I’ve chosen to write it as IF. Why? What does this genre offer me that works so perfectly for this story? What can I do in this genre that is impossible everywhere else. So I love a page break as a unique feature of the medium, and I’m having fun playing with it. It was a bit of a revelation for me, for example, when I read Spectres of the Deep (it was maybe the third game I played), which is just so playful in its use of page breaks right from the start. When I give a choice, I try to make it either lead to different flavour text, or a stat change, but sometimes it doesn’t, and I intend it as a way for the player to think about who their MC is, and deepen their understanding of the story they are building.
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New topic. Game dev thoughts. I’ve been thinking today about the discussion we were having about how to give a player feedback on how things are going ‘organically’, without requiring them to look at the stats screen. This morning, I’ve been trying something new (to me) where I convert every relationship percentage stat into a simple numerical variable, and use that to include a bunch more multireplace. In the case below, opferhan can be 1 (rel_ferhan <+33), 2 (<+66), or 3 (>66).
Ferhan @{(opferhan) in particular looks at you with unmistakable contempt|in particular looks at you with surprise|shoots you a warning glance and shakes ${fer} head minutely}.
I’m really enjoying it so far because it’s letting me make a scene read quite differently depending on a whole bunch of small variables, rather than just writing maybe three different versions based on only one main variable. I’m thinking of doing it with all my secondary stats. I don’t want to start testing them until much later in the game, but I’m enjoying the idea of using them for flavour text/player feedback now. Any thoughts?
